Re: I think I really screwed myself here...

I meant disabled, picky picky. It is nonetheless inaccessible--but anyways.

In response to questions and suggestions:

Bathroom: If you all must know, it was a number 2. :)

Admin "Back Door" Question: I was already logged into my user account which
at the time was an administrator (thus the severity of infection and loss of
drivers prior to his use of the computer, yeah I know, stupid me, at least I
deserve that one completely).
It was one of those, "Hey, let me check my e-mail real quick," kind of
things, and like a moron I didn't want to come off as offensive by turning on
the guest account and logging out long enough for him to do it. (I had guest
disabled as he was the first and only person ever to touch the computer other
than myself--i have a bios password too that is different for the one i use
on windows). Some way to pay back trust and politeness, eh?

I've gotten successfully side-tracked now. Oh yes, I tried to boot from the
optical drive, but that didn't work either. It would seem that the heat of my
system (I could probably cook eggs on my touchpad after an hour, damn
turion!) caused hardware failure to my drive. Haha, I guess it wasn't a
driver issue after all. Just peachy.

I am inches away from just throwing the damn thing out my second story
window, so I'm giving up for the day. I'll try the websites provided tomorrow
when I'm in a better frame of mind. :)


"Bruce Chambers" wrote:

Humble Zephyr wrote:
I let a friend (now ex-friend) of mine use my laptop--I'm such a moron!--and
for whatever reason he started screwing around with it while I was in the
bathroom. By the time I got back into the room he had deleted the default
administrator and taken admin priveledges away from my single user account on
the computer. I have tried several times to reformat, but to no avail, as I
had already lost the drivers for my NIC, optical drive, AND 1394 previous to
his messing with it (all I can use is my wireless card, miraculously enough).
I usually don't let anyone touch it, but as it was in severe need of a
reformat at the time with the severe loss of drivers, I figured what the
heck. This was a very unwise choice on my part, and it certainly won't be a
option to anyone ever again, but to date I have found absolutely no way of
reformatting.


Simply boot from the WinXP installation CD. You'll be offered the
opportunity to delete, create, and format partitions as part of the
installation process. (You may need to re-arrange the order of boot
devices in the PC's BIOS to boot from the CD.)

HOW TO Install Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;316941

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/clean_install.htm

Had you failed to set a strong password on the built-in Administrator
account? If so, your "ex-friend" probably just took advantage of your
having left this "back door" wide open. By the way, the built-in
Administrator account *cannot* be deleted. The most your ex-friend
could possibly have done was to disable it. You could have fixed this
without resorting to a format and reinstallation. Linux-based password
cracking utilities abound on the Internet, freely available to anyone
who can use Google.


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:
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They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin

.

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